Whilst AI adoption increases daily, a key challenge remains; people feel overwhelmed by the opportunities, the pace of change and ultimately the concern that they are not maximising AI’s value.

Those who view AI as purely a way to save time or cut costs risk missing the bigger picture: the opportunity to fundamentally rethink how we connect with audiences, measure performance, create content and build long-term value.

At this pivotal moment for marketers, the scale of the opportunity is so vast, how do we drive through change at pace whilst maintaining quality and ensuring a secure, data-first approach?

At Space & Time we have committed to leading in AI by transforming the way we think and operate, not just adapting our previous ways of working.

Using AI to rethink the Media Value Chain

Traditionally, the media value chain has been fragmented: insights, strategy, creative, targeting, measurement – frequently managed in silos. AI has the power to integrate every link in that chain.

When tackling our AI roadmap, we laid down our workflow through the entire business. Everything from onboarding, to briefing, strategy, creative and media activation, insights and reporting, right through to invoicing. We identified areas that we could elevate within each section and how we could create connections between them. The objective is not to automate for automation’s sake, but to create a more coherent, intelligent and responsive marketing engine.

We created a robust testing framework for platforms and solutions that considered everything from quality control to privacy considerations to measurement of success.

Using this framework we identified lots of operational change opportunities within the business, but at a more strategic level AI is fundamentally changing how we think about and approach media and technology for our clients and their customers.

A new customer journey – AI Marketing

We are preparing our team and clients for a redefined customer journey. If everyone has a digital PA at their disposal, consumer decision making will be accelerated relative to their previous behaviour and predefined preferences. It will flatten the journey and could potentially reduce the number of touchpoints.

The rise of agentic AI (agentic AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence that can make decisions and act autonomously) requires us to rethink fundamental marketing

strategies and approaches that we have been using for decades. Gartner predicts that the growth in adoption of this tech will see a corresponding drop in traditional search, with volumes falling by as much as 25% in 2026! *Source: Gartner, Predicts 2024: How GenAI Will Reshape Tech Marketing.”

For our property clients, albeit beginning from a low base (could it be higher if we were optimising for it last year?), we can already see that quarter 1 of 2025 has seen a significant uplift from AI sources to the previous quarter, with ChatGPT the preferred platform.

What changes do we, as marketers, need to make to our marketing strategy?

With consumers increasingly relying on AI platforms such as ChatGPT to do their research ensuring your brand appears in these chat results and is cited in the research for consumers will be key to continuing to drive results. Of course, people will still use traditional search platforms but utilising features like Google’s AI Overviews and adoption of the new ‘AI Mode’ is on the increase, which will transform search into an end-to-end AI experience in Google.

With this in mind we have developed an AI audit (including Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) & SEO Readiness) to assess the readiness of our clients’ media, creative, content and structured data for AI search and chat platforms.

Depending on your sector, most performance is likely to be driven by traditional digital methods and sources in 2025 but the rate of change here is rapid and marketers must act quickly if they are not going to fall behind. My three key tips for an AI-ready Marketing Strategy:

1. Prioritise Structured Data. AI agents rely heavily on structured data to make decisions. Ensuring information is easily machine-readable by providing a stricter categorisation of services, products etc. for AI interpretation is crucial.

2. Move Beyond Third-Party Thinking. Connect your data! Integrating your first-party data is a must to future-proof media performance. The delivery of personalised content and customer journeys will rely heavily on advanced automation, AI and the seamless integration of your data. With as many as 38%* of people opting out of third-party cookies, connect your data or get left behind.

3. GEO, Make your content AI ready. Search behaviour is shifting from “find me a website” to “give me an answer.” A GEO approach is about writing content that comprehensively answers questions that your customers might be asking to an AI platform, whilst still considering ‘are we optimising towards commercial queries’?

*Apply Digital survey referenced in mediashotz.co.uk/opt-out-surge-uk-consumers-to-reject-third-party-cookies-on-chrome-in-2025

Leading with Confidence

We know AI is evolving fast. It won’t be perfect. Not everything will work right away. But the brands and agencies who are testing, learning, and building now will be the ones ahead tomorrow.

At Space & Time, we’re embedding AI into every layer of our work — from SEO and creative ideation to campaign performance, reporting and operational growth.

Our goal isn’t just to keep up. It’s to lead.

If you’re exploring what that might look like for your business, we’d love to talk.